3min chapter

Katherine Ryan: Telling Everybody Everything cover image

Diggerland

Katherine Ryan: Telling Everybody Everything

CHAPTER

The Importance of Being a Karen

"I hate it's like a woman my age now has been silenced by young people which is a tool of the patriarchy to make sure that women over 40 know their place and you better shut up," she says. "Ladies do not feel intimidated by the threat of being called a Karen when you see injustice in the world or something ticks you off." She also shares her advice for parents on how to deal with an abusive partner who wants to keep their child away from them, as well as what experts have told her about getting legal help if they're going through a divorce.

00:00
Speaker 1
I had all of my thick coats on, like you're like, just have a hack bonner, just wear your clothes on, like that is definitely my mink overcoat, I don't have a mink overcoat. But, so there is, it has so many land in the middle of summer, layered with all of our, all of the things we could not fit in our 18 suitcases. We have a photo of that we're gonna share with you in the show notes. And okay, so I wanna first tell you about, because it was a pretty left-field decision. It seems like in a scheme of things to have moved across the world, especially if you knew our personalities. It's a good. So at the time, Ash and I were running our business in Sydney, so we had a dessert bar called the Chocpot, of which we had grown to five locations, and we had a burger restaurant alongside that called Staxon Burgers, and we had grown them into two locations. So you kind of look at that and you'd be like, okay, well, we have brick and mortar sauce, it just did not make sense. Why would you do that? You want to leave them all behind? Right, it did not make sense. Now, what happened, what I guess was the catalyst for this decision was that, at the end of 2018, we actually found out that one of our most trusted employees, he was the store manager, and almost we were kind of nurturing him to become sort of Ash's T-I-C in the business overall. We have found out that he'd been stealing from us, and he'd been stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Like that's the most for a long time. For a long time, yeah. So anyway, so you can imagine just how, having a betrayal like that happen can, it was almost like it was this, the thing that we needed almost to snap us out of this hand still will. I feel like we had created for ourselves. Which by the way, we didn't know we had it, but it was like, again, something like this happens, and you start to look at everything, right? You start to evaluate where you are in your life, and what you want to be doing, and all of that. And for us, I mean, I've definitely always wanted to live and work overseas, and so this was like, why have, if we don't do that now, like, when are we ever going to? Because we're on this trajectory of growth, which is great, and I'm not, you know, not definitely not downplaying that. But is that actually the business we wanted to grow? I think that was a decision that we had to ask ourselves. That's huge. And so at the time, you and I, we were working on another business idea, we worked on a fashion technology idea, and which, you know, was really cool. And I, you know, I was kind of like, well, if I'm going to move, if I want to explore another country, another city overseas, well, what better place than New York City for the intersection of fashion technology? That was what I told myself. Anyway, I was like, there is no better place in the world. This is it. This is it to explore this idea. And do you remember when we had this discussion? So I mean, I think I told you, well, first I think it was over brunch. And I was like, I was a little bit nervous on the car ride because I didn't know how you were going to take it. Like whether you thought that meant I wasn't investing in the idea or, you know, what it's like. You know, obviously you knew that this big thing had happened. And then, you know, I was still getting over the, I don't mean it's time dramatic, but like the grief of that. And then I was just like, yeah. And so I think we're just going to move to New York City. I do remember this conversation. And I love that how you're like grief. Like with the, I don't mean to be dramatic. I'm like, you just found out that you had been stolen from one of your closest people who've been nurturing hundreds of thousand dollars. Like, I don't want to, you know, I want to make too much of a big deal out of this. That's quite funny. But yes, I had, you know, and then you were, you had been contemplating moving. There was a few opportunities looking at from a corporate perspective. I remember that conversation. So I guess not entirely out of the blue, but I think the big part was, you know, at the time, and, you know, talking about how it was, the decision was very much like, your moving is a, how can we make this work? And I didn't feel like it was too big of a, because once I realized, I'm like, oh, okay. I mean, I'm like, oh, I'm going to come visit you guys at some point. It'll be fine. You were a morning person. I'm kind of a super night out anyway. So the time zone might actually work quite well. And we were very much in, how can we make this work sort of mode? I think in that conversation. So after the initial thing of going, oh, well, that'd be, you know, like, you know, obviously when one of your best friends moves, like that's always going to be tough. But I think we're very much in that, okay, how can we make this model work? And I know how like, you know, like dedicated you are to your commitment. So I knew that wasn't going to be a big thing. But I remember that conversation and I was like, okay, I think we can do it. I think we can do it. Also, I mean, this is a great thing about, you know, our relationship is that there's just so much faith and trust, I think, in who we are and right, which I guess we were still kind of like, you know, finding our way through that. Yes. As well. Right. But I do remember, I don't even know how long after that initial conversation. Not long. I was like, two weeks, but I also know like two days, you did because I think you had that conversation with me just before you were going to see your lawyer about the actual mood, like, right? Like what you're going to know, what these are going to be on and right back. So that's why it was like becoming real. So that's why we were like, okay, let's figure out what our model looks like. Yeah. Okay. So I do have the sense that, okay, so we probably had that initial discussion on like a Sunday. Okay. Yeah. And then I think it was a Wednesday. Yeah. Again, we had the second conversation. Yeah. And that conversation, it was like dinner. I think we just worked out at the park. We had a trainer at the time and we were having lasagna. Yeah. And I don't, anyway, we're talking about it and things like that. And I was like, so I spoke to my lawyer and she kind of has this thing, like this, this like by, by one, get the second half prize. And I was kind of thinking, if you just wanted to, did you just want to move to New York as well? LOL. And then I was saying, but it wasn't the second person to be asked. And you're like, no, that is part of the application. It's like, what's part of my application? Yeah. Like by the second application, get that for me. And then we had a bit of a joke about it. I think, you know, where I was like, Oh, you know, we can't resist with deals. LOL. This is so funny. And then, and then you were like, no, but really, I really want this deal. Do you not realize I'm very Asian? I mean, probably as a comeback. I don't get value out of this. Yeah. But I cannot unsee this deal now. We'll do a whole other episode on the podcast about that, but this is ridiculous. I'd rather pay more overall than. But I do, I do remember that exact moment. And I just remember first thinking, this is funny. And then second thinking, that's ridiculous. And then third thinking all in the space of, of course, one second. And then third going, well, is it so ridiculous? It's kind of ridiculous, but that sounds kind of fun. And then like going and then going, what, but why wouldn't I go? Like, what is the thing that's keeping me here and not having a compelling, you know, obviously family and things like that, but not something that, you know, you guys actually had more things. I don't like, I don't have, you know, bricks and mortar business, multiple businesses that need me here. Yeah. Um, not in a relationship or anything like that. So I was just like, there was literally, and then I was like, let me think about it. Yeah.

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